self-care
CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON GIRLS
A SERIES OF RESEARCH AND INFORMATIONAL PUBLICATIONS BY LCRG
“Putting the world’s best research to work for girls.”
by Tori Cordiano, Ph.D, Kelly Bhatnagar, Ph.D., and Lisa Damour, Ph.D.
GIRLS AND WELL-BEING: BODY IMAGE In the mid-1980s, experts found body dissatisfaction among women to be so commonplace that it constituted a form of “normative discontent.”1 More recent research has documented that body dissatisfaction can begin in girls as young as 3-5 years of age and occurs at staggering rates among young girls and adolescent women.2 Surveys have found that 40% of third grade girls express a wish to be thinner and that by sixth grade, nearly 60% have tried to lose weight.3 By adolescence, as many as 80% of girls report that they are dissatisfied with their bodies, and nearly 20% of adolescent girls experience clinically significant body dissatisfaction.4,5 The presence and magnitude of body dissatisfaction is linked to higher rates of depressive symptoms and worrisome behaviors such as restricting one’s diet to lose weight.6 Eating disorders are the result of a complex interaction between genes and environment, and body dissatisfaction is a strong risk factor for the development of an eating disorder. They are diagnosed more often in women. The prevalence of eating disorders grew significantly between 2000-2018, and rates of eating disorders increased, particularly among adolescents, during the pandemic.7,8